Chapter Text
“I’m actually rich now,” Wei Wuxian said matter-of-factly between bites of alarmingly red chicken.
Lan Wangji took another sip of tea without saying anything.
Wei Wuxian laughed and kicked him under the table. “Hey! I’m serious!”
“I didn’t say anything,” Lan Wangji replied.
Wei Wuxian rolled his eyes and took another bite. “Anyway,” he said with his mouth still half-full, “the Mos never got a chance to sign a will in the end, and I’m the only one left, so it’s all going to me.”
“Mm.” Lan Wangji placed another piece of chicken in Wei Wuxian’s bowl.
“Of course, they were all murdered, so… it’s gonna be awhile before I get it.” Wei Wuxian ate the new piece of chicken, seemingly without noticing where it had come from. “The Mo estate is pretty nice, though! I mean, as long as you don’t mind that it’s a crime scene.”
Lan Wangji’s hand halted in place, teacup held halfway to his mouth.
“That’s where you’ve been living?” he asked.
“Well, yeah?” Wei Wuxian was already holding the next bite of chicken to his mouth before he had finished swallowing. “It’s pretty convenient since there’s no one to kick me out, and it’s not like there’s anywhere else for me to go.”
“The rooms are still covered in bloodstains.”
“The bodies got taken away by the police ages ago, it’s not like it smells! And besides, I’ve been sleeping in one of the empty servant rooms anyway.”
Lan Wangji took a long sip of tea in lieu of an audible sigh. He never liked having to be put into the position of imposing his help upon Wei Wuxian. Things would be so much easier if Wei Wuxian would just ask so Lan Wangji could say yes.
He set the cup back down with a light clink and said, “Come live with me.”
“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian gasped, feigning drama as he splayed a scandalized hand across his chest. “Thank you for the offer, but I am an independent man! I can get along perfectly well on my own without any handouts.”
As he spoke, he reached across the table for Lan Wangji’s wallet and deftly slid a credit card out into his fingers.
“Check please!”
The door to the home office had been left open that morning. Lan Wangji usually closed it before leaving for work; he wasn’t expecting his home to be broken into, of course, but as a prosecutor, he had many important files in there that needed to be kept safe. It was more of a way to soothe his distant nerves than a genuine precautionary measure, but nevertheless, it was a routine he generally stuck to.
This morning, though, he had been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he had forgotten. And so there the door was when he got home, ajar for the private contents of the room to be seen by anyone.
This has to be a metaphor, he decided as he watched Wei Wuxian immediately make a beeline for his desk and put on a show of getting comfortable in the padded office chair.
“You must be breaking all sorts of rules inviting me here, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully as he rearranged himself to throw his legs over one of the armrests, crossing them at the ankles. “A prosecutor and a defense attorney, living together? Think of the cross-pollination, the information leaks, the blatant favoritism! Why, this could be grounds for a mistrial if we ever go against each other in court.”
“Only if someone finds out,” Lan Wangji said, eyeing the armrest of the chair as Wei Wuxian idly spun it back and forth on its axis. It was coming increasingly closer to scratching the edge of the desk, but continued to miss by a hair.
Wei Wuxian laughed and began thumbing through the nearest stacks of paper. “Ah, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, you really have too much faith in me. I could totally sabotage you with all my secret knowledge about…” He grabbed a random paper and read off the summary. “A guy accused of murdering someone with soba dough?”
“That case is already closed,” Lan Wangji replied blandly.
While Wei Wuxian continued to amuse himself spinning in the chair and flipping through files, Lan Wangji excused himself to the kitchen to make tea.
It was good to have a routine. Rote memory carried him through the steps and away from the machine of his brain for a brief moment. Lately, his mind had felt so full he swore the overflow of mental sewage was gumming up his sinuses.
Eventually, he was going to need to go digging for all the unprocessed emotions that had been trapped underneath before they were squeezed too tight and came bursting out in some undignified way. It was on his list. Admittedly not very high on the list, but it was there. He would get to it.
When he returned to the office with two cups of tea, Wei Wuxian was sitting upright in the chair. He startled at Lan Wangji’s footsteps, a reflexive smile falling down across his face like a curtain.
“Ah, Lan Zhan.”
His hand was laying across a well-worn folder, the bound side soft and creased in the wrong place from holding more notes than it was meant to. His index finger curled up nervously, the nail catching on the top edge of a paper.
Mo Xuanyu’s skin was so much paler than Wei Wuxian’s had been, from a lifetime spent indoors. His wrists were thinner too. Lan Wangji would be able to wrap one hand around both of them at once.
He set the tea down and gestured for Wei Wuxian to drink.
Wei Wuxian nodded gratefully, but didn’t move to take the cup. His teeth caught on his lower lip, then slid back as he redoubled his smile.
“You’re still investigating my death?”
Lan Wangji’s eyes slid up to somewhere just past Wei Wuxian’s temple. He nodded.
“Oh.”
The corners of Wei Wuxian’s lips drooped, leaving his mouth in the strange in-between state of an uncomfortably neutral show of teeth before he began speaking again.
“It was thirteen years ago,” he said. “This case is even colder than you.” His heart wasn’t in the joke – his eyes didn’t crease at the corners, too busy diligently searching Lan Wangji’s face for any minute reaction – and so it fell flat.
He must not have read very far, then.
Lan Wangji tilted his head vaguely in the direction of the file. “The case isn’t cold. It was closed.”
Wei Wuxian gaped. “What?”
“The suspect was tried and found guilty.” It was only a few words, and yet, suddenly Lan Wangji was tired. His lower jaw was protesting, aching right at the hinge, as if he had been chewing gum for too long. “And then, he was given capital punishment.”
“Who?”
“Wen Ning.”